The present invention relates to telecommunications systems and particularly to toll-free, or "800", telecommunications networks.
In today's marketplace, almost every business can offer to sell a product or service to a customer through a telephone call, between the business and the customer, rather than require the customer to physically be present at a location of the business. In fact, some businesses may rely on this type of customer contact to provide significant revenue to the business. As a result, such a business may invest in an on-premise telephone system such as an "in-bound telemarketing system" which is tailored to facilitate contact between the business and the customer through a telephone call.
In an in-bound telemarketing system, the business typically subscribes to an "800" service provided by a telecommunications network where a customer can call the business toll-free, i.e., at no-cost to the customer. However, even though the "800" service may encourage the customer to contact the business to buy a product or service, the "800" service is only one part of an in-bound telemarketing system. Another part of such a system is the "call-receipt system," i.e., how the business actually answers and processes the customer telephone call. At a minimum, usually, an agent (i.e., an employee) of the business will answer and process the customer telephone call, e.g., collects customer information such as an account number, address, etc.. Typically, in an in-bound telemarketing system, the time for an agent to process a customer's telephone call affects the overall performance of the in-bound telemarketing system. For example, if the time for an agent to collect customer information is long, the business may have to employ more agents and subscribe to more telecommunications facilities (i.e., telephone lines) in order to be able to answer, in a timely manner, telephone calls from other customers. As a result, in order to more efficiently process the customer's telephone call, the business may provide an agent with additional support equipment, such as a computer system, to facilitate the agent's job. The business's computer system can be used to record customer information in a data base and to provide billing and ordering information. Consequently, the agent is supplied with a computer terminal so that the agent, after entering the customer name via the computer terminal, can obtain and display relevant customer information, e.g., the customer's address, from the data base thereby reducing the need for the agent to spend the time collecting such information from the customer.
In addition, the business can take advantage of another call processing technique to further reduce the amount of time spent by an agent in processing a customer telephone call and thereby improve the overall call-receipt efficiency of the in-bound telemarketing system. Specifically, the business can take advantage of an ability of the telecommunications network to provide the Automatic Number Identification (ANI) of the customer (i.e., the calling party) when the customer's telephone call is answered by an agent of the business. As a result, the business's computer system can process, or translate, the ANI of the calling customer into a form that is compatible with the business's data base so that relevant customer information is simultaneously provided to the agent upon the agent answering the telephone call from the customer (e.g., such customer information as an account number, address, etc.) without the agent having to ask the customer for his or her name.